Obama, Lady Gaga and Steve Jobs—what do they have in common? They are, of course, all Americans. And according to a survey by social networking site baidu. com, they all best illustrate(举例说明) the word “cool”.

    But just what does it mean to say someone is “cool”? Most would answer that it is something to do with being independent-minded and not following the crowd.

    Yale University art professor Robert Farris Thompson says that the term “cool” goes back to 15th century West African philosophy. “Cool” relates to ideas of grace under pressure.

    “In Africa,” he writes, “coolness is a positive quality which combines calmness, silence, and life.”

    The modern idea of “cool” developed largely in the US in the period after World War II. “Post-war 'cool' was in part an expression of war-weariness (厌战情绪), . . . it went against the strict social rules of the time,” write sociologists Dick Pountain and David Robins in Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude.

    But it was the American actor James Dean who became the symbol for “cool” in the hugely successful 1955 movie Rebel without a Cause. Dean plays a tough guy who disobeys his parents and the authorities. He always gets the girl, smokes cigarettes, wears a leather jacket and beats up bullies. In the movie, Dean showed what “cool” would mean to American young people for the next 60 years.

    Today the focus of “cool” has changed to athletics (体育运动) stars. Often in movies about schools, students gain popularity on the athletics field more than in the classroom. This can be seen quite clearly in movies like Varsity Blues and John Tucker Must Die.

    But many teenagers also think being smart is cool. Chess and other thinking games have been becoming more popular in schools.

    “Call it the Harry Potterization of America—a time when being smart is the new cool,” writes journalist Joe Sunnen.

    "Dreams may be more important than sleep. We all need to dream," some scientists say. Dreams take up about one quarter of our sleeping time. People have several dreams each night. Dreams are like short films. They are usually in colour. Some dreams are like old films. They come to us over and over again. That may be because the dreamer is worrying about something. Dreaming may be a way of trying to find an answer. Some people get new ideas about their work from dreams. They may have been thinking about their work all day. These thoughts can carry over into dreams.
    Sometimes we wake up with a good feeling from a dream. But often we can't remember the dream. Dreams can disappear quickly from memory. Too much dreaming can be harmful. The more we sleep, the longer we dream. The mind is hard at work when we dream. That is why we may have a long sleep and still wake up tired.

    Oct.15th was International White Cane Safety Day. You may have never heard of it, but it was a day to remember for Peng Baier, 17, of Nanjing Foreign Language School. After school that day, he visited his local Disabled Persons' Federation (残疾人联合会). He wanted to know about the sales and feedback (反馈) of his newly published book, How to Help a Disabled Person.

    Since he lives with his disabled grandparents, he understands that life can be hard for this group of people. Peng decided to write the book because he wanted to create a better life for disabled people in China.

    “Crossing the street is a big problem for them,” Peng said. “Speeding cars, people walking in a hurry, bikes on the sidewalk for the blind - accidents can happen everywhere. That's why we hardly ever see disabled people on the street, even though there are millions of disabled people in China.”

    Peng's book with pictures is easy to understand. It is a guide to the right and wrong ways to treat disabled people. The left-hand pages show the reader the right way; the right-hand pages point out mistakes that are commonly made.

    The teenager had 2,000 copies of his book printed. With the help of the Disabled Persons' Federation, he gave them to the disabled community.

    “The book is bilingual, so foreigners can also use it,” said Peng.

    Peng put great effort into the book. For example, he interviewed many disabled people to get first hand materials. He also studied textbooks from different schools for the disabled. Peng finally completed his handbook, but he still had the problem of getting it printed.

    How does a high school student raise money needed for that?

    With a smile, Peng said how he went about it. “I visited three local companies, dressed up in a suit and tie. I was lucky. The companies were warm-hearted and willing to give me a hand.”

    Nations in the UN have agreed that the world needs to completely stop plastic waste from entering the oceans. The UN resolution(决议) has no timetable. But ministers at an environment summit believe it will set the course for much tougher policies and send a clear signal to business.

    Under the resolution, governments would establish an international task force(特遣小组) to advise on fighting what the UN's oceans chief has described as a world crisis. One controversial issue is the wish to include businesses on the global task force. Ministers say the problem will not be solved without business, but green groups point out that some firms in the plastics industry have been against restrictions for decades. Vidar Helgesen, a leading voice in the talks, told BBC News, “Business is listening to markets and seeing how marine litter(海洋垃圾) is a growing popular concern. It's possibly the fastest－growing environmental problem and it's therefore a fast－growing problem for business. We need to bring on board those companies that want to change things, and then look at taxes and regulations to make more companies act.”

    Certainly, there has been resistance from plastics firms to the bans. One UN delegate, who did not want to be named, stated that journalists in some countries were being paid by the plastics industry to write stories about job losses following the plastic bag ban. But they did not mention the jobs being created in alternatives, such as labour－intensive basketwork, which provides work for the rural poor. But some governments are standing firm, and the meeting has witnessed individual nations declaring tougher action against single－use plastic bags.

    The UN's spokesman Sam Barratt told BBC News, “Of course we would have liked to have gone further, but this meeting's made real progress. There's now a sense of urgency and energy behind the issue that we haven't quite seen before. What is obvious, though, is that the UN can't solve this problem on its own. We need to do it in partnership with governments, businesses and even individuals.”

    On one of her trips to New York several years ago, Eudora Welty decided to take a couple of New York friends out to dinner. They settled in at a comfortable East Side cafe and within minutes, another customer was approaching their table.

    "Hey, aren't you from Mississippi?" the elegant, white-haired writer remembered being asked by a stranger. "I'm from Mississippi too."

    Without a second thought, the woman joined the Welty's table. When her dinner partner showed up, she also pulled up a chair.

    "They began telling me all the news of Mississippi," Welty said. "I didn't know what my New York friends were thinking."

    Taxis on a rainy New York night are rarer than sunshine. By the time the group got up to leave, it was pouring outside. Welty's new friends immediately sent a waiter to find a cab. Heading back downtown toward her hotel, her big-city friends were amazed at the turn of events that had changed their Big Apple dinner into a Mississippi.

    "My friends said: ‘Now we believe your stories,'" Welty added. "And I said: ‘Now you know. These are the people that make me write them.

    Beauticians, bartenders, piano players and people with purple hats, Welty's people come from afternoons spent visiting with old friends, from walks through the streets beside her house, from conversations overheard on a bus.

    It annoys Welty that, at 78, her left ear has now given out. However, she continues to walk into life and notes the vivid life. Sometimes, sitting on a bus or a train, she hears only a fragment(片段) of a particularly interesting story, yet she quickly takes out a notebook and write something fantastic under her point of pen.

    Do you often feel like you want to wash your hands again and again? Or do you ever have the urge to line up the items on your desk? These all may be symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (强迫症), or OCD, which affects about 2 percent of the world's population.

    Those who suffer from OCD have difficulty finding successful treatment because doctors don't clearly understand its causes. But now, a new study has given hope for a future cure.

    For the study, which was published in the journal Nature in October, researchers observed humans, dogs and mice. They discovered four genes that may be responsible for obsessive-compulsive behaviors in humans.

    But why observe dogs and mice to learn about humans?

    "Dogs, it turns out, are surprisingly similar to people," study author and geneticist Elinor Karlsson, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, US, told NPR. "They're chasing their own tail or chasing shadows like normal, but they're doing it for hours."

    In the study, researchers made a list of about 600 genes in mice, dogs and humans that they thought might cause OCD, reported NPR. They then compared those genes in two large groups of people – those who don't have OCD and those who do. In the end, they identified just four genes with mutations (突变) in the OCD group. The genes are active in a neurological pathway (神经通路) in the brain, which is believed to help control actions. But the mutations could block the neurological pathway.

    For example, for people without OCD, when they finish washing their hands, a signal will come, telling them to stop. But for people with OCD, the neurological pathway is blocked, so the message isn't getting through. As a result, the person will continue to wash their hands.

    "OCD and anxiety are kind of like learning disorders," Marcos Grados, an OCD researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told NPR. "Often with OCD, people have a fear of germs (细菌). You can't touch tables or door knobs (把手) and every time it's the same sensation (感觉). You didn't learn that the last time you touched a door knob, nothing happened. It's like touching it for the first time ever."

    However, that doesn't mean people who have these genetic mutations will always have obsessive-compulsive behaviors, the researchers said. That's because the disorder also relies on other things, such as one's environment.

    According to reports, various existing treatment methods have low success rates in patients. But now that we know where OCD comes from, let's hope we will soon find an effective way to treat it.